Teenagers who take part in video games tell of being headhunted to work on technology used against Ukraine
Russian authorities have systematically involved children in the design and testing of drones for the country’s war in Ukraine through nationwide competitions that begin with innocent-seeming video games and end up with the most talented students headhunted by defence companies, an investigation has found.
The revelations, part of an investigation by the exiled Russian news outlet the Insider, are the latest to show just how much Russia’s leaders are dragging the country’s youth into the war effort in Ukraine, with “patriotic” and militarised education often spilling over into outright participation.
“The kids are actively involved in modelling components of systems for various drones,” one of the teenagers involved told a journalist. “I know of several people at least who were modelling UAV [unmanned aerial vehicle] components for major enterprises.”
Ender warned us.
At least they specified “teenager” because after reading “children” my first thought was:
New Russian drone design document!
Hey it “worked” for Tesla.
Ender’s game kinda shit
Not really. A normal thing for most functional states 50 years ago. A comprehensive pipeline of training and preparation for various industrial and military roles.
From first aid to orientation on terrain to radio knowledge to flag signals. Flight clubs, other relevant sports, small arms disassembly and assembly. What to do in case of an emergency. Chemistry, electric engineering, mechanical engineering.
Computer games weren’t a thing, and cheap small drone planes too. But this is pretty normal, except nothing is official, because today nation-states prefer gray schemes.
Russia will soon have the children pilot the kamikaze drones directly by riding them.
